[SMCARA] Poetry!

[Marty Airhart]

Let's face it, amateur operators are people of culture!  You might spot any
one of us at the Baltimore Civic Opera on any given night.

To that end, here is a poem from my award-winning UMBC graduate that she
wrote shortly after I obtained my ham license.  She could not release it
for publication here or anywhere until it was published in a recognized
periodical.  That happened yesterday, so I can now share it with all you
guys and gals.  You may not be a poetry nut, but hey, how many poems have
you ever seen published about our hobby?  Forgive the shameless pride of
her father.  lol  Here 'tiz...

Jackie Airhart

*Ham Radio*

A thumb and index twirl the knob carefully
in case something dangerous lurks in the dial;
then adjust the volume, send it swooping.

And the squeaks and squeals and squawks that burst out of the black
box are not born of farms but from high and far away;
from spheres of air that cloak the world.

We gather at dark, beneath a steeple of knit steel in slickers and boots,
to hunt down the resting places of our echoes. Don’t you wonder too, how
your name must taste to an incorporeal voice, as it sounds out the slow
crackling syllables?

Sometimes the silence ruptures, laughter tumbles out and stuns us
like pieces of very bright light. But at other times–in the stretches,
the pauses, the hushed thread of silence the antenna follows drifting
across the sky,

We find ourselves ignoring human grumbles and listen instead
to the stars whispering. Their long-held secrets shimmering,
murmuring some cold and ancient tongue.


-- 
Marty